80 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



chow. The return trip was made over substantially the same route. All 

 of the territory explored lies in the upper half of the province of Che- 

 Kiang. 



The Boxer troubles were all confined to three northern provinces 

 about Peking. The region which I explored in this house-boat trip 

 was not in the range of the Boxer difiiculty, nevertheless the Chinese 

 everywhere were more or less savage over the results of the foreign 

 invasions — rightly so, I think — and while in the central and southern 

 provinces they were not openly hostile, they were not exactly kindly "dis- 

 posed toward the foreigner. 



While in Japan I had made the acquaintance of some very charming 

 people who reside in Shanghai, and who promised me that when I came 

 to Shanghai they would give me a house-boat trip into the interior. At 

 the conclusion of my investigation in North China, the opportunity came 

 for this house-boat trip, but the gentleman who was to accompany me, 

 Mr. Rainer, was just starting for Europe. Nevertheless, he turned his 

 house-boat over to me, and a very comfortable boat it was, and stocked it 

 with all sorts of provisions, and employed for me a crew of seven China- 

 men, including a " Laodah " or captain who spoke a little English, the 

 balance of the crew being coolies who spoke no English at ail. In com- 

 pany with Mrs. Marlatt, I started out late one night from the city of 

 Shanghai, my little house-boat being attached to a row of seven or eight 

 Chinese boats, like a train of cars, all towed by a little steam tug. We 

 were thus taken up the river and into the interior canal system. 



It may be said that much of Eastern China is a flat country, raised 

 above the level of the sea only a few feet, and all this area is broken up 

 by innumerable canals, which take the place of roads. The Grand Canal 

 of China runs from Hangchow for hundreds of miles northward, crossing 

 the great Yang-tse and Yellow rivers, until it finally reaches Peking. It is an 

 enormous canal, running, so far as I know, its entire length without 

 locks, on a uniform level. We cannot imagine such a condition anywhere 

 else in the world except in China ; nowhere else could a canal be run for 

 such a length and across the great rivers on the water level as this and 

 others do in China. 



The morning after our start found us in this netvi^ork of canals, 

 abandoned by our campanion boats and little steam tug, and making the 

 slow progress possible with a single stern oar. We passed many Chinese 

 towns and villages, and finally struck the Grand Canal, which we followed 



